Sons of Torchwick
by Tambrone
Summary: Roman Torchwick: criminal, thief, mastermind. He had many names, most of which aren't easy to the ears, but he never expected to be called a father, let alone a father of two


**Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY. If I do, lore would be off the charts and Roman wouldn't be dead. RWBY belongs to its late creator Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth, I only own my OCs and non-canonical events.**

 **Explanation of my absence at the bottom!**

* * *

The universe has a strange way of doing things: he likes to think that it has a fucked up sense of everything.

Clouds have been accumulating over the city for days. Always in the morning from around seven to ten, coloring the sky dark and grey but not a single drop. Then today came, and it poured.

He was familiar with this particular rain. He knew the taste of it, the smell of it. It was rain from the Sanus Sea, blown to the east by dusty Vacuan winds. For an instant he was back on the main deck of a ship: binoculars in hand as they slipped out of port, Vale slowly engulfed by the horizon.

Roman Torchwick dressed casually: black waistcoat over an orange shirt with sleeves rolled up, black trousers, and leather shoes—the latter regretfully so with this weather.

He took a puff of the cigar; played the smoke inside his mouth, swirling left and right—it smelled like walnut, tasted bitter with a slight tinge of cinnamon and cocoa. Exhale. The orange-haired man pulled his tobacco away and looked around.

It was twelve past fifteen in the afternoon; right during lunchtime. A couple of tables across him were four suits huddled together, likely talking smack about their boss; directly behind him were a young couple, happily chatting away and romancing one another. A quick glance inside revealed the bustling interior—families and friends, laughing and joking about as servers went table to table in succession like automatons.

The man looked away to the streets as the host greeted new patrons. Cars passed by, so did the occasional pedestrians with their umbrellas bobbing up and down. The weather was easing off; from a deluge, to shower and drizzle, before a humid mist blanketed the city. Roman knew the calm won't last so he made haste.

"Check, please."

Roman took off, strutting away and with double the pace, betting that he'd be where he needed to be before the rain resumed.

 _Splish-splash._ Roman tried his best to not step into a puddle of water, an almost impossible task. It had been five minutes and he was almost there. The sky rumbled again.

Just in the last block, the pedestrian light turned red. A police cruiser went past him, the two officers staring at Roman as they took a slow turn right. He tipped his head, and they nodded in response before driving off.

Green.

Roman leisurely crossed the street, twirling his cane in an absent manner. The third building, made of red bricks upon a limestone base. It was similarly designed like the surrounding buildings. He scaled up the stairs, and stopped halfway.

Roman took a step back, taken out of his autopilot. He looked left, he looked right: and except for some passers-by, no one seemed to be with the boy.

What boy? The boy sitting on the top of the steps.

Roman turned back to him, his tranced look slightly putting the man on edge. This seemed suspicious. That was what Roman warned himself, but that still didn't stop him from approaching the boy.

He doesn't even seem to realize Roman's presence at first, his eyes still blankly fixed forward until tapped on the shoulder.

"Kid, you okay?" Asked Roman.

It got his attention but the boy didn't respond. He stood up and looked around, an expression on his face akin to confusion before he stared up at Roman with head tilted to the side. The ears on top of his head drooped low, and a furry appendage at the back lazily swung left and right.

 _What the hell?_

The boy snapped out of his previous state. A blink and a couple of confused look-arounds before going into all-out panic; head snapping left and jerking right, animal appendages that once stood calmly twitched with his tail trying to reach between the legs.

"Hey, are—" Roman regretted taking that step forward.

The child let out a scream when he noticed the man, an ear-piercing scream, the loudest scream Roman has ever heard, and he kept going while stumbling backward.

That was a _very_ unexpected reaction. Roman watched as the boy kept backing up, only stopping once the wall was against his back, all the while erratically looking around his surroundings.

And the presence of an unfamiliar man certainly did not help the situation.

"Shh… hey, hey—it's okay!" Roman tried getting his message through the boy's incessant screaming. Walking backwards towards the street, he noticed the lack of anyone that could've heard the deafening screech from earlier before reapproaching the boy; this time slow and low. "It's all right, I ain't gonna hurt you."

The boy's screams slowly decreased before finally stopping. He appeared to calm down a bit. It can be considered a good development. His screaming was replaced by erratic breathing as, eyes darting around between Roman and everywhere else.

"Why are you here all alone? Where are your parents?" he asked while slowly getting closer to the boy.

Roman kneeled when he believed there was a comfortable space between them, but the child was still very wary. Seeing this, he forced a smile and raised his hands.

"It's all right… I won't do anything to ya. Okay?"

Roman felt like he was interacting with this—forgive his unfortunate phrasing— _small animal_ who would run off if he made one wrong twitch. Roman knew exactly what he felt; it was a different type of hesitance he received a couple of years back, so he knew what he should be doing.

"I just wanna help." He did physically what he did then metaphorically—Roman stood and waited. An arm stretched forward, he waited for the boy until _he_ wanted to move. "Will you let me help you?"

The little one had a brief back and forth, to Roman and the hand offered to him. He soon seemed to realize that the man in front of him wasn't a threat, at least that's what Roman would like to think.

The boy slowly reached out for Roman's hand. He still looked unsure, but at least more trusting than before.

"Mhm," the simple response was all that Roman needed. He gave the boy's hand a light squeeze, just a simple sign of reassurance, he thought.

The sky roared. Roman glanced up and sighed.

 _Closest police station's a few blocks down from here._

Brief dejection turned back into a smile, Roman briefly glanced at the bag hanging on the boy's left hip. "Whaddya say we come in my place for now? Stay warm and out of the rain."

Animal ears twitched. The boy took a quick scan and nodded.

"So, what's your name?"

"Yon…" he mumbled.

"Huh… weird name," Roman whispered the last part. "I'll help find your parents, okay?"

(-)

"What's the probability of it ruining his life?"

"Near none," he quickly responded.

"'Near none'?"

"The amnestic was made specifically for him." He turned to his companion before intently gazing back at the brick building. "Memories of us are already wiped clean and he should forget the little details as he ages."

"But, Torchwick? Really? He almost killed us!" the woman growled.

"Isar—"

"Him and his lot!"

"Isarna!" He slammed his foot against the floor, sunken purple eyes glared towards her. Isarna briefly glared back, but he scoffed before looking away. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath—by the Brothers, this was getting ridiculous—before proceeding: "You doubt my decision, Isarna."

The silver-haired woman turned back to him, 'no shit,' her eyes said. Shaking her head, she explained, "It's not fair. Not for them, not for anyone."

Despicable to many and making little to no sense for some, his decision was without a doubt absolutely mental, and he was willing to take the consequences of his judgment; whatever they be.

"It's… definitely not the best decision." He sighed. "But, it is undoubtedly the best chance we have." He looked back towards the building. "With this, the outcome will be minimal."

Silence filled the confines of the vehicle, only the intensifying rain drummed against the exterior.

"Rize…" her fist clenched, she leered at him, "Rize doesn't know, does she?"

"Because she wouldn't listen," he spat, not even looking at her. "We're doing this. No matter what she says. No matter what _anyone_ says."

Another uncomfortable silence passed. "That's… cruel."

"I know." He took a deep, trembling breath. This time he turned around. With teary eyes, a wobbly smile curved his lips: forced, pained. "But how much more of a monster can you make out of me?"

* * *

 **A/N: Hi. It's me, ya boi.**

 **It's obvious that you guys would like an explanation, an _actual_ explanation. So, here it goes; no bullshit.**

 **First and foremost, I've felt writing as being lackluster for a good part of 2019. The passion is sort of gone, no matter how dramatic that is considering this _is_ just fanfiction, no offense to anyone. I think about writing, I think about what to write, but I just can't! You would say that it's just writer's block. But with my experience, if I think of doing something but not actually going through with it, it's either: really really _really_ stupid, very illegal, or I just don't feel like it.**

 **The first is a pretty high ceiling, I do dumb stuff on a daily basis!**

 **The second... well, I started drinking alcohol when I was 16, so yeah.**

 **The third is the obvious answer. But why _did_ I lost passion for writing? Because I found a different one; ****I had to take care of my sick grandmother.**

 **She was diagnosed with spleen cancer in December 2018. This is actually her second time diagnosed with cancer, the first was around 2010, ovarian cancer. The doctors said it was still dormant, she was given medicine to kill it off, see what happens. It worked for a bit, but three months later, the growth increased in size. I begged her to go to the doctor again, but she insisted. May comes, and it was only then was I able to drag her there.**

 **It was too late then. The doctors weren't brave enough to operate on her, neither do they recommend chemo, said her body wouldn't be able to handle it at this stage. Not that we have the money to do anything. But, she was certain that everything would be fine. With each month that passed, her body grew weaker and the tumor grew.**

 **I had to take care of her by myself. My father had to work, my mother unfortunately withered due to breast cancer back in 2016 - one of the catalysts of my grandmother's health decline - and her sisters and brothers could only help by giving me pocket money and the regular visit to our home. I'm not mad, I knew they couldn't possibly do anything else that I couldn't, but even then I'm still grateful.**

 **Everything went to shit in August. It was becoming difficult for her to eat. In September she couldn't eat full meals at all. She said it hurts whenever she finished eating. We fed her snacks like biscuits and the sorts to subsidize, but it only worked for so long, in October she can only drink yogurt. Even porridge hurt her. And recently, exactly 26th November passed away.**

 **I am sad, obviously. The woman practically took care of me since I was out of the incubator. But I was expecting it, because she said that I should be ready for anything, and thanks to that, I suppose her death hit me less than it did my mother. The worst part was her last months: how she cried about how painful it is, how much she wanted to die. The feeling of hopelessness I had, how everyday, the things that I could do to comfort her, became smaller and smaller with little to no effect.**

 **I suppose watching the usually cheerful woman act like that kind of broke me. Nevertheless, I was both sad and happy that she passed on. In a sense, she won't have to suffer anymore.**

 **After that, I guess I went to find things that would comfort me. I got back to playing TF2 and fell in love with it again, practically one of the things that stopped me from breaking down - my family obviously at the top. I still think fo writing, every day in fact. You see, around September I looked back on what made me write the first rendition of SoT so easily that I could spit chapters daily. Then it hit me. I enjoyed writing them, even with their less than stellar... everything. I didn't care about whether or not punctuations were right or if a word is overused. Proper sentence structure? Lol, what's that? Proper grammar? Bloody minimal. I couldn't care less about catering to an audience back then, I just saw it as a chance to share something I enjoyed.**

 **I concluded that even though I'm writing for other people's enjoyment, I shouldn't do it if it didn't give me any. Obvious, I know, but even after that, I couldn't bear myself to write again because I was scared that it would get in my of taking care of my grandmother. For all she knows, I was still writing while I take care of her, now I feel kind of bad for lying to her.**

 **So, now, I thought, I should honor her by continuing! And that I will do, but at my own pace. I won't give myself a fictional weekly deadline that stresses me out if anything, a chapter will be done when it's done! So, I'm back, but please don't expect the weekly uploads we had back then.**

 **Bah, what the hell am I doing? This A/N is half as long as the chapter!**

 **Leave a review, you know how much I love reading 'em! As usual, stay classy, and till next time fellas!**


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